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Fever, Phimosis, and Fear of Urinating

I have a baby (I know, shocking, right?)He’s close to three months old.

THREE.MONTHS.OLD.

Keep that in mind.

June 6, 2013, afternoon, my baby’s temperature is rising. My wife (yes, I have a wife, and she’s lovely) and I thought it was just normal temperature.

Later that night, the temperature reached 38 degrees celcius. We decided to bring him to hospital.

I thought it would be just a flu.

Nope, the doctor said that the little one’s throat is just fine.

She said that either flu or something else, something more sinister.

She then opened my baby’s pamper and started pulling my little one’s foreskin of his pee-pee.

She then said: “This is the culprit, Sir and Madam. Your little one has small foreskin opening and his pee has been blocked, caused infection. Go see the surgeon. See if he wants to circumcise this cute baby.”

My eyes went wide. My wife’s too. We are such synchronized couple.

“C-c-circumsize?”

“Yes, sir, Circumsize”

“B-but..he’s too small!”

“Nope, it’s normal when a baby has Phimosis to circumcise the foreskin to lessen the impact of blocked urine. Go see the surgeon.”

We nodded, said thanks, and go to the surgeon.

The surgeon than come and did the same to my baby’s pee-pee, even more brutal. He pulled the foreskin far and caused small bleeding.

“Yep, Phimosis. I am afraid this may need circumcision. But let’s apply some salves first to it, alright?”

“Okay…”

So we went home with a feverish baby. And all three of us were tormented for the whole night. He kept on crying, keep on feverish, and even refuse to suckle.

I was panicked, and grab my little one’s hands. They were stiff as logs.

But he was still breathing. I immediately called my mother in law, put her on speakerphone, and let my wife’s crying to her.

The grandmother cried too and started telling us to put the baby on the floor, drip jeruk nipis juice on the baby’s mouth, and start pinching him.

5 minutes later the baby reacted.

We decided to go to hospital right away.

The baby then admitted to observation, given feverish medicine dripped through an IV, and thus began our week long stay at the hospital guarding and taking care of the baby.

My mother in law flew immediately to our town, his other, one week older grandson be damned (in the other hands, there are lots of hands that can take care that one, while there are just two of us mostly to take care of my little Ghazsan).

My parents also decided to come to help us.

After five days of care to reduce his fever and stabilize his health, the surgeon decided “IT’S CIRCUMCISION TIME!”

Morning, Thursday 13th, 2013.

My wife carried my baby on her hug. She sat on a wheelchair. The nurse pushed it to the operating theater. The baby then left in the operating theater, alone with the surgeon and his helps. For maybe an hour, my wife was silently crying, tears on her eyes.

One long hour later, we were called.

“Ghazsan? Family of Ghazsan?”

“It is done?”

“Yes Ma’am, please pick him up!”

My wife than picked our baby, already circumcised and crying.

We were told “Please don’t breastfeed him yet, wait for an hour.”

So came another agonizing hour for my wife.

Our baby was crying on top his lungs and my wife was unable to breastfeed him. She was told to stay away from the baby for a while, just to prevent her from succumbing to her motherly instincts.

My mother and her mother than took turn on picking my baby up, hugging him and soothing him.

I saw my wife crying. I rub her back to sooth her.

One hour later, she finally breastfed our baby.

And we were all happy.

Until six hours later, when we realized that the baby had not been urinating, at all.

After long deliberation, an army of nurse came bringing catheter to pump out the urine. My wife, my father, and me promptly left the room, unable to bear witness to the procedure. We can only hear the cries of my son being “violated”.

Afterward, my baby can urinate normally. Saturday, June 15th, 2013, the doctor said we can bring the baby home.We were overjoyed.We brought the baby home. And our joy was shattered once more when the power was out at 7 PM and the baby was found not urinating again for long time.

Hot, dark, humid home, and fear that there was a complication drove us to return to the hospital and admitted again to the same room we spent a week in.

The catheter then returned. I promptly left the room.

My son was afraid to pee. The nurse also said that the baby’s urine indicated the he was not properly hydrated.

So my wife promptly tried to breastfeed him more than usual.

And then another of my baby’s trauma reared its ugly head: he feared hard, long cylindric shaped thing being inserted into his mouth due to him being feed the hated antibiotic through a pipet.

He refused to be breastfeed through a hard nipple.

Our mind boggled, and we tried everything we can to force him to be breastfed.